On Tuesday, Steve Taylor – a Milwaukee County Supervisor and Franklin Alderman – will try his hand at yet another political post, the seat for Franklin Mayor.

To win, Taylor will need to defeat conservative challenger Steve Olsen, a colleague on the Franklin Common Council who edged him out by several hundred votes in February’s mayoral primary.

If Taylor wants reassure voters of his conservative bona fides, choosing a campaign aide that signed the Walker recall petition is probably not the best way of going about it.

Taylor’s campaign website lists Thomas Gadowski as his campaign treasurer. According to I Verify the Recall – an online database that tracks recall petition signatures – Gadowski signed the Walker recall petition on December 3, 2011.

Taylor told the Red Fox blog he wasn’t aware Gadowski had signed the recall petition, but thinks it’s not relevant to his bid for Mayor.

“I don't have a litmus test for those who are my friends, who are my supporters, who vote for me or who chose to donate to my campaign. The position of Franklin mayor is nonpartisan and it is that person's job to represent everybody,” Taylor said in an email.

The mayoral race may be nonpartisan, but Franklin is also red country. In the 2012 recall election, 65% of Franklin voters pulled the lever for Governor Walker and supported his reforms. Apparently, Gadowski didn’t.

“While I disagree with those who signed the recall petition, the last I checked this is a free country and people have the right to legally express their opinion,” Taylor said.

Be that as it may, Taylor’s conservative record is not above reproach.

In an advisory referendum in 2012, Franklin residents overwhelmingly supported the idea of reducing the size of the County Board to nine members and making supervisor positions part-time. The referendum prompted Rep. Joe Sanfelippo to introduce legislation that would reform the County Board and keep it from meddling in day-to-day operations.

But Taylor was conflicted. In January of 2013, he went to Madison to persuade Republican legislators to kill Sanfelippo’s bill. To make it a bipartisan effort, Taylor was even Sen. Chris Larson's “plus one” at the Governor's Mansion following Walker's State of the State address.

The following day, talk radio personality Mark Belling took to the airwaves calling Taylor a “phony conservative” who sought only to preserve his full-time pay.

On Tuesday, voters in Franklin will finally have their say on Taylor’s conservative credentials, including deciding if they think it’s an issue that a top lieutenant in Taylor’s campaign signed the Walker recall petition.

Editor's Note: Purple Wisconsin is a collection of community bloggers with views from across the political spectrum. The Journal Sentinel hosts these blogs as a way to encourage thoughtful debate about the important issues facing Wisconsin and the Milwaukee region. The opinions voiced here are those of the individual bloggers alone; they are responsible for their posts. The Journal Sentinel does not edit or direct the bloggers in any fashion.

Editor's Note: Purple Wisconsin is a collection of community bloggers with views from across the political spectrum. The Journal Sentinel hosts these blogs as a way to encourage thoughtful debate about the important issues facing Wisconsin and the Milwaukee region. The opinions voiced here are those of the individual bloggers alone; they are responsible for their posts. The Journal Sentinel does not edit or direct the bloggers in any fashion.

Aaron Rodriguez is a freelance journalist for El Conquistador Latino Newspaper and a volunteer board member of Hispanics for School Choice. He runs The Hispanic Conservative, a blog he created in 2008 to advocate for conservative Latino values. Aaron holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and minored in political science. Rodriguez values a limited and fiscally judicious government, a competitive free-market economy and solution-based immigration policies that recognize the family as the first and most important foundation of a society.